Red Hat AND Morally Grey
by meridian-rose
Summary: Ficlets featuring missing scenes from the series: "Serenity"; Zoë and Wash discuss their new travel plans and "The Train Job"; Simon realises he’s no longer an innocent civilian
1. The Red Hat

Disclaimer: Firefly and related terms and characters do not belong to me. Not for profit.

Notes: For Whedonland's Browncoat rewatch challenge fic. Missing scene for "Serenity", prompt "shopping on Persephone"

Summary Takes place just after leaving Persephone and before Mal gives his "welcome" speech to the passengers; Zoë and Wash discuss their new travel plans.

* * *

"So, we're really going to Whitefalls?" Wash asked.

Zoë, sitting in the co pilots seat, and examining the allosaurus, said "If the pilot doesn't know where we're going, we are truly screwed."

"You know what I mean," Wash retorted. "I can't believe Mal wants to go back there. Patience shot him."

Zoë nodded and put the plastic dinosaur back down. "That's true."

"_Shot_ him," Wash went on, unable to let this fact go. Sometimes he thought he was the only sane one onboard – and he was the one who liked to play with toy dinosaurs. "I remember it well. There was blood. Lots of gushy blood."

His wife said nothing. She could say a lot when she was being silent and right now she was wordlessly saying "Yes, there was blood, but he lived, and we're still going to Whitefalls so there's no point going on about it." Wash sighed.

"He almost died," the pilot said. This seemed highly relevant to him; the in-aptly named Patience wasn't someone known for her restraint. He really didn't want his wife going up against the sharpshooter again. It might be Zoë who got shot this time and then Wash would have to go and be heroic and most likely get himself killed.

"I soon got the bleeding under control." Without a doctor onboard Zoë was often forced to draw upon the basic field first aid training she'd had during the war. She picked up the stegosaurus and moved it so that it was hiding behind the oblivious allosaurus.

"And the infection? Because selling all our antibiotics had seemed like such a good plan at the time? He was delirious for days! He kept talking about taking me shopping on Persephone. Promised to buy me a pretty red hat. Said I'd look _darling_ in it."

Wash had taken his turn to watch over the captain during his fevered dreams. There were things he'd heard during his vigil that he'd tried very hard to forget about since, but the red hat had stuck firmly in his mind.

"We've been to Persephone about ten times since then, including today, and Mal has never _once_ taken me shopping. He's never bought me a red hat. Or any hat. Or anything even resembling a gift." Wash gestured empathically, knowing he was rambling. It wasn't that he wanted Mal to take him hat shopping (it would be creepy and weird), it was that he was frustrated with the all too common situation they now found themselves in "We're hardly ever allowed to shopping at all. Just re-fuel, exchange cargo with Badger, and off we go, like as not with the Alliance on our tail. Then off to certain doom at Whitefalls, just to finish the day off with a bang!"

"You worry too much," Zoë said, getting to her feet. "The captain will be ready for Patience this time. Look, we're briefing the passengers in a minute. I have to go."

"I'll be there in a moment," Wash said distractedly.

As Zoë turned to leave he pulled at her sleeve and looked at her imploringly. "At least wear body armour," he begged.

Zoë leant over and kissed him on the cheek. "That, I can do."


	2. Morally Grey

Disclaimer: Firefly and related terms and characters do not belong to me. Not for profit.

Notes: For Whedonland's Browncoat rewatch challenge fic, missing scene for "The Train Job", prompt "morals" and for 100_tales prompt "grey"

Summary: Simon realises he's no longer an innocent civilian on the side of good

* * *

"What are we doing?" Simon asked and Kaylee cheerfully told him, "Oh, crime."

Indignation leapt up but before he could express it, common sense squashed it out of him. He had no right to question them or their methods. He was a guest of sorts on this ship; sure, he'd paid his initial fare, but that money and the goodwill it brought was long gone. Mal had let him stay on account of his medical skills, or so the man said, but he didn't feel like one of the crew. In truth he'd been telling himself that this was temporary, that he wasn't like them, that one day it would all be over and he'd be back at his real job on a civilized planet.

The realization was dawning on him that this was increasingly unlikely a future he could look forward to.

He too, he had to accept, was a criminal. Wanted by the Alliance for something that was technically a crime, but would have been a morally worse act if he hadn't done it: to break his sister out of the Academy. He was called a kidnapper, when he had been her liberator, and she was considered vulnerable and unfit to make her own decisions, a state of affairs the government that sought her had brought about.

He thought about the casual violence Mal and Jayne demonstrated, and the loyalty Zoe showed her captain. He thought about Kaylee and how she wasn't any sort of evil, just smart and funny, and caring. He thought about Inara and wondered if the benefit she got from staying with the ship matched the one the crew gained from her respectability. He thought about Book and how the man of God had managed to make peace with his decision to stay onboard with this rabble of smugglers. He thought about Wash, who could surely have got a highly paid job flying Alliance cruisers but who preferred being here with Zoe, the love of his life.

He thought about River, damaged, but alive.

He wondered how long Mal would let them stay on board, and his real reasons for doing so.

Morals weren't set in stone, they were decided by society, and his current society was a different onr than that which he was used to. Simon knew he had to stop thinking in terms of black and white, right and wrong. Sometimes things were just morally grey, and he would have to accept that if he and River were to survive.


End file.
